this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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As a cyclist, I kind of agree. Apparently the introduction of seat belts caused an increase in cyclist deaths because people started driving less carefully.
I'm willing to bet that the design of modern trucks is killing more pedestrians than seat belts are. But go off.
The source of that claim seems to be a single article written in 1985, and has absolutely no data to support the claim that feeling safer so driving more dangerously is the actual cause, but states it as fact nonetheless.
Hello ghost of John Forrester!
You know, I've had a similar thought to what you've offered here. It's always been a tongue in cheek observation, but because cars are so safe, people literally take their safety for granted driving them. If cars were less safe, people might take the responsibility of driving more seriously.
Make it so, if you get in an accident, it chops a foot off. So not life ending, but certainly life altering. People drive knowing "I'll be fine," and then they look at a text, daydream, all that. If you knew, every time you got in the car, you risked losing a foot, you'd take that shit seriously.
This is called a Tullock spike, though other economists came to the conclusion that it would have an inverse to the desired effect. Where safe, law abiding drivers would have the danger car while those who don't care would find a way to bypass the mechanism and continue to drive recklessly. Thereby resulting in more injuries for the drivers you don't actually want to injure.